Untitled Post for a Friday

From the looks of the blog, it's been a little quiet on my end lately. But from this side of things I've mostly been super busy! Lunch hours that could normally go to updates here have been devoted to the pots themselves - trimming, decorating, firing, waxing, glazing. I've also been committing to squeezing in half an hour or so of throwing/trimming into my morning routine, in addition to my runs. As great as all this productivity has got me feeling, I'm looking forward to getting past Marathon/Show week so I can take some time and just be. "Cut back" my studio hours to "just" ten hours or so a week. Spend less than a third of my waking hours on the weekend running. That sort of thing. But overall it's been nice to go to bed at the end of the night knowing that I spent my day doing. And not just going, going going, but doing things that are valuable and important to my being. But like I said, I'm looking forward cutting back on a bit of the doing so that I have more time for other all important being activities such as abiding with family and friends, something that Krystal would confirm has been not so much happening as greatly as preferred this last fortnight. Or so.

All that to say, I don't have a whole lot of photos to show for my work, but I do have a few things to share.

I ran a glaze firing last weekend to mixed results. Actually, disappointment was the word of the day when I cracked the lid. My beautiful running blue combo did not so much beautiful this time around. I'll get to that later. But to start with the good things.

A few things glazed in the Retro Blue Green. The plate was supposed to have carvings in it, but the RBG seems to have had different feelings on the matter. Still, at least a pretty color.

Rusty Red did the same bang-up job it always does. A couple spots it got a little thick in the middle of the bowls and looks like iron ore deposits. Not my standard preference on functional ware, but beautiful colors and unique textures.

Ah, disappointment.

What I didn't take into account was that the two places I tested the combo were relatively flat surfaces - a platter and a shallow bowl - and the base glaze involved is a floating blue, which is to say that the desired result is for the surface colorants to bleed and create a streaking effect. Which, I'm thinking, is what happened here: it did exactly what it was supposed to do. And on the taller bowls, it bled the Dark Cobalt top coat with it. So, the centers of the bowls are beautiful, with deep blues and streaking effects. The further up the walls you go, not so much. These may still constitute "seconds" but unless my stock runs quite low will probably not appear at the show in October. The outsides are still gorgeous, but the insides are not what I would consider prime results at all. Yikes.

So that's about it. Lots of throwing last minute bowls and cups, lots of trimming said bowls and cups, trying to get all set on the business side of things - bags, boxes, business cards, display - lots of stuff that needs updating/restocking/first-time-decision-making. I'll get there.

In the meantime, a couple "businessy" things regarding my site.

1. I'm proud to announce that you can now reach my site via lukelangholzpottery.com - no Blogspot required! I'm still hosted by Blogger, so there's no need to update your blogroll or feed - it will automatically redirect. But this is very exciting for me!
2. You may have noticed (as they've been up for a while) but there are now additional "pages" here to supplement the blog. You can find them at the top of the screen. "About the Artist" is what it is - currently you can read my personal artist statement and I will be updating a bit of bio as well. "Links" is a listing of sites I consider to be of importance in my artistic journey, including teachers, supporters, and fellow artists. Please check that out, as if you like my stuff you will most likely find "else" of interest somewhere in there.
3. Finally, if this blog is not nearly enough Luke for you, I can now be found on Twitter (if you're into that sort of thing) where I have been a little bit more regular in posting quick pics and thoughts from the studio, as well as complaining about the weather and blathering about music. You can find me under the moniker @EarthAndClay.

That's all I've got time for folks. Lots of glazing, and thus lots of new pots, in the near future. 21 days, 3 hours, 42 minutes to show time. Yikes.